Alex Jennings to Appear in PERFECTION, OF A KIND: BRITTEN VS AUDEN at Southbank Centre

On Sunday 5 November, City of London Sinfonia and the London Review of Books will present an unmissable evening of music and words exploring the musical-literary collaborations and collisions between two of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, Benjamin Britten and W.H Auden.

Perfection, of a Kind: Britten vs Auden will trace the contours of the passionate and turbulent creative relationship between the composer and poet in a very special one-off performance featuring CLS musicians together with a trio of stage and screen luminaries – Johnnie Fiori, Alex Jennings, and Barrie Rutter. The performance, directed by Phillip Breen and conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren, will take place at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Marking fifty years since Auden’s death and 110 years since Britten’s birth, Perfection, of a Kind: Britten vs Auden is the first instalment of a new partnership between City of London Sinfonia and the London Review of Books exploring intersections between literature and music.

Rowan Rutter, City of London Sinfonia’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “I am absolutely thrilled to be working with LRB and this very special group of artists on this project. At CLS we seek to shed new light, to alter the perspective and to offer an alternative view, and collaborations like this one are an opportunity to explore new ground on much celebrated figures of our musical and literary heritage.”

Sam Kinchin-Smith, LRB’s Head of Special Projects, said: “We’ve long admired CLS’s approach to interdisciplinary collaboration, so we’re thrilled to be working with them on a new series exploring the intersections between literature and music. This partnership reflects the inventiveness and irreverence we have in common.”

Perfection, of a Kind: Britten vs Auden will open with Britten’s youthfully exuberant Simple Symphony, written just prior to his meeting with the charismatic poet, performed in arrangement for string quartet. The performance – which takes its title from Auden’s ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ – unites a rich collection of works from the Britten-Auden partnership, including the incidental music and cabaret songs composed for Auden and Isherwood’s play, The Ascent of F6. Funeral Blues (Stop all the clocks) and Cabaret Jazz Song (Forget the dead) will be performed by the incomparable Johnnie Fiori (Hairspray, The Sunshine Boys) in her first collaboration with CLS. The evening will culminate in a rare performance of the highly evocative, Night Mail, with its well-loved closing verse sequence, “This is the night mail crossing the border…”.

The programme will feature extracts from Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art, and the imagined reunion between Britten and Auden performed by Barrie Rutter and Alex Jennings, as he takes to the stage as ‘Bengy’ for the first time since the play’s world premiere at The National Theatre in 2009.

Alex Jennings is a three-time Olivier Award-winning theatre, TV and film actor and Perfection, of a Kind: Britten vs Auden is his third collaboration with CLS following In Place and Time with Juliet Stevenson in 2019 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Barbican in 2001 to mark CLS’ thirtieth anniversary.

Joining CLS for the first time is stage and screen luminary and founding Artistic Director (1992 to 2018) of Northern Broadsides, Barrie Rutter, who will read Auden’s notorious 1942 letter that brought the relationship between the poet and composer to a blistering end, alongside writings by Alan Bennett and Frank Kermode from the LRB archive, and fragments from other letters, poems, diary entries and books, which together trace the full arc of Britten and Auden’s creative relationship.

The performances will be directed by the acclaimed international theatre director and RSC Associate Artist, Phillip Breen, and CLS musicians will be reunited with long-standing friend of the orchestra, conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren.

Perfection, of a Kind: Britten vs Auden is at the Southbank Centre on 5 November at 6pm

Photo Credit: Britten Pears Arts

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